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Nice Hotel... but...

My wife and I were on holiday for a week with 10 other family members (who were staying for a week longer than us). I’m putting up my own review as we booked separately and had an entirely separate booking, so our experience is slightly different to my family who stayed longer than us. There have been a couple of quite rude replies (and lies) from the manager to their reviews, which were quite balanced in my opinion…
-Location-
Firstly, the hotel is located about 10 minutes drive from the airport, so it's quick and easy to get to. The only downside (or upside if you like planes) is that the hotel is situated right under the final approach path of the airport, so it can be quite noisy, but most people think it's quite cool to see the planes flying so low overhead! (You can almost see the individual bolts on the planes bodywork…)
-Check in and Room-
We arrived at the hotel in the early afternoon on a Saturday (we flew in on an all inclusive basis with Thomas Cook). The reception staff were quite slow at booking people in, and the queue was out the door! Frustratingly there were other guests walking straight up to the reception and getting served first, ignoring the queue, saying they had "priority booking". That wasn't the case, and the reception staff didn't seem to care or challenge them. (There is a...My wife and I were on holiday for a week with 10 other family members (who were staying for a week longer than us). I’m putting up my own review as we booked separately and had an entirely separate booking, so our experience is slightly different to my family who stayed longer than us. There have been a couple of quite rude replies (and lies) from the manager to their reviews, which were quite balanced in my opinion…

-Location-

Firstly, the hotel is located about 10 minutes drive from the airport, so it's quick and easy to get to. The only downside (or upside if you like planes) is that the hotel is situated right under the final approach path of the airport, so it can be quite noisy, but most people think it's quite cool to see the planes flying so low overhead! (You can almost see the individual bolts on the planes bodywork…)

-Check in and Room-

We arrived at the hotel in the early afternoon on a Saturday (we flew in on an all inclusive basis with Thomas Cook). The reception staff were quite slow at booking people in, and the queue was out the door! Frustratingly there were other guests walking straight up to the reception and getting served first, ignoring the queue, saying they had "priority booking". That wasn't the case, and the reception staff didn't seem to care or challenge them. (There is a loyalty scheme at the Elba hotels which gives priority booking in, but these people weren't a part of that so they were just queue jumping!) I'd like to have seen some assertiveness from the reception staff in telling them to queue like everyone else.

(As a side note, all the reception staff were rude throughout any dealings I had with them, apart from one young male who was actually quite funny and helpful. He should get a promotion over the rest of them!)

Once we got checked in, we were told to come back 2 hours later as the rooms were still being cleaned... (check-in time is apparently after 15:00). So we returned at 15:00 and got our room keys. Unfortunately, the reception staff didn't tell us where to go so we spent 20 minutes going in the wrong lifts and walking around the lobby and corridors looking for our room, and eventually a cleaner who didn't speak a word of English obviously felt sorry for us and showed us where to go!

Apart from that initial annoyance, first impressions of the room were good. We were given room 516, which had a great view from the balcony, which I've added to this review as a photo. I'd definitely...More

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Room Tip: The higher up the room (i.e. the top floors) have the best sea view. The ground floor and possibly first floor rooms won't have any sea view due to all the trees etc.

Stayed: July 2014, travelled with family

Location

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Ask Alan C about Hotel Elba Sara

5 Thank Alan C

This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC

DavidNavarr0, Director General at Hotel Elba Sara, responded to this reviewResponded 4 August 2014

Dear Alan C,

Thank you very much for taking the time to write such a detailed review about your personal holiday experience at the Hotel Elba Sara.Even though you give us a quite negative score we are surprised to read that you enjoyed your holiday among us.

We are also surprised to read that you have encountered grumpy, negative and careless staff as the helpfulness and friendliness of our staff is one of our biggest assets but we apologize if you did not perceive it that way.The incident with the TV and the cockroach are unfortunately issues that can happen but then again we are surprised to read that kind of reaction by our employees as there are obviously procedures to follow in such cases.

We are glad to read that you enjoyed the Italian theme night but we are sorry to read that you did not appreciate the effort of our entertainers to get you up and join in with their activities and we apologize for if you found them disturbing.

We are sorry to read that you would not come back in the future and neither recommend our establishment for the future holidays of your acquaintances.

Kind regards from Fuerteventura.

Report response as inappropriateThank you. We appreciate your input.

This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of TripAdvisor LLC

Firstly I agree with the comments about this being a good hotel. We stayed here for my Dad's 60th Birthday as a party of 12 (4 families). The 4 kids loved the swimming pools and the entertainment staff were excellent, especially Will. The restaurant was nice with good food and a variety of choices with themed nights, although like most all inclusive hotels became repetitive. The lady who worked in the restaurant and in the bar at night Kendra was excellent and the kids loved her.

This is a good hotel but unfortunately our experience was let down by the reception staff and management. The other two reviews on this site are not duplicates but my Dad and brothers reviews. I am disappointed that when my 4 year old daughter caught chickenpox there was no contact from the management team at all and the reception staff were very unhelpful when we asked for help on the local area when trying to secure accommodation as we needed to stay on in the resort as she couldn't fly home. This was an extremely stressful time for us as a family and I would like to think as a manager of a hotel we would of been contacted and asked if we required any help or assistance, especially as we followed requests and kept our daughter confined to our room for the last three days of the holiday so to not affect other children staying in the hotel. A little customer care would have gone a long way such as offer of room service, a basket of fruit, colouring-in pack for my daughter or bottles of water for the fridge. We were challenged when taking my daughters fruit and yoghurts out of the restaurant. Surely management should have informed there restaurant staff that our room number had a sick child and allowances should have been made to help us.

We are disgusted that the manager felt he had to lie when responding to my brothers review that we asked to take 4 bottles of wine up to our room and for safety reasons were refused. After a stressful day of using the internet to secure our accommodation we asked for a bottle of wine to take up to our room to accompany our Chinese take away we had bought in rather than make repeated journeys to the bar from our 5th floor room. The managers response will be passed onto Thomas Cook for them to review.

An admission from hotel management that in this instance they had provided a poor service but have taken it on board and will improve things in the future would have eased our disappointment rather than the increased frustration we now feel due to inaccurate, unprofessional, mud-slinging we see from the manager. Given that throughout this entire episode in the hotel we never actually met him I suppose its hardly surprising!

Overall good hotel for families as long as you don't need assistance from the extremely unhelpful and rude reception staff or management.

Stayed: June 2014, travelled with family

Location

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Ask KLBuch3 about Hotel Elba Sara

5 Thank KLBuch3

This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC

DavidNavarr0, Director General at Hotel Elba Sara, responded to this reviewResponded 4 August 2014

Dear KLBuch3Thank you for taking the time to share your opinion about your experience at the Hotel Elba Sara. From behalf of the hotel again we are very sorry that your daughter has had the terrible fate of becoming ill with chickenpox during your stay at the Hotel Elba Sara.

You can imagine that during school holidays attending 250 children a day in our facilities, these incidents happen very often and always have been resolved satisfactorily by our staff, which is always here to help and try to solve the problems on the most diligent way possible.I personally apologize on behalf of the staff for if any of your family felt treated wrongly by any of them.That said I would also like to inform that all actions and measures taken in the hotel were made following the protocol of action marked in cases of chickenpox in the hotel by the FTO. And finally I would like to inform you that we do not understand your desire to harm and discredit the image of the hotel towards other potential visitors as they are many, many clients who have trusted, trust and continue to rely on our hotel to spend their holidays.

Regards from Fuerteventura.

Report response as inappropriateThank you. We appreciate your input.

This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of TripAdvisor LLC

Me and partner stopped here for one week from 6th July. Our package holiday was booked through Thomas Cook and didn't get off to the best start. We were delayed for 9.5 hours due to a technical fault on the plane. We arrived at the hotel at roughly 1020pm, after being due to arrive at aprox 1230pm. We were checked in by a lady on reception and all seemed to be ok. We were provided with a slip for an evening meal in the tucan bar and told this was on Tuesday evening. The receptionist went on to explain that the bars within the hotel don't accept any cash payments and the method of payment for these was to leave a deposit of money behind reception which was credited to your room. It was explained to us that it's important we keep this credit topped up as once it's ran out, the bar staff wouldn't serve us, but instead send us back to reception to credit more money onto the room. We thought this was a bit odd but didn't for see any issues with this as it would help us budget our spending money more effectively as we'd booked half board.

We got into our room, and first impressions were ok. Notice I say OK, only. Upon closer inspection, there were scuffs along the walls, and part of the wallpaper was peeling off. Additionally along the side of the curtain, there were patches of mould! We went outside to admire our sea view, just as we booked, only to find we could see a smidge of the sea. Of course it was dark, but we could predominately see the side of a building to the left with a long road, and to the right, the other side of the hotel building, with a massive palm tree covering the rest of what could be classed as a 'sea view room'. We weren't happy about this so went back down to reception to request a room change. We tried to lock the balcony as we were leaving our room, only to find this didn't lock!

We spoke to the same receptionist who checked us in, at this time it was approaching 11pm. She told us that all rooms are sea view (which they're not as there are ground floor rooms which walk out onto the pool area) and went on to tell us that she wouldn't do anything this evening as she was too busy and finished her shift at 11 o'clock!! Needless to say we were furious..not as much as an apology, just a rude, arrogant individual.

We visited reception the next morning, and spoke to a lady who was much more pleasant and did apologise for the service the previous evening. We logged the issue with the balcony, and also an issue with the toilet not flushing properly that we discovered after leaving reception the previous night. This lady explained that there weren't any rooms available to change to at that time and to go back at midday. So at midday, we did go back to reception, only to be told to come back at 5pm. At 5pm we went back, and still were told there was nothing that could be done. At this time we spoke to the Thomas Cook rep who spoke to the manager. He let us know that we could be upgraded to a junior suite free of charge, but not until Tuesday. We declined this as couldn't see the logic in using our holiday time to pack our cases, and unpack them again, for the sake of 3 days. When returning to our room, we noticed that the toilet had been fixed, and the balcony now locked which was great.

I know a lot of people enjoy the entertainment through the day such as playing water polo, archery, football etc, and the team did do a great job of ensuring there were always activities to take part in. However, me and my partner went away for a relaxing week together. We work very hard and had saved for this holiday. So the last thing we wanted was to be hassled 3/4 times a day to take part in these activities. Towards the end of the week, I was more firm with one of the entertainment guys to leave us alone to enjoy the rest of our holiday. This was greeted by a threat to be thrown in the pool off my sun lounger (while I had my iPod on my lap) and 'you can relax at home, you've paid for the games'. Needless to say this really got under my skin! Fair enough asking people to participate, but the frequency, and almost pressurising approach to do this, after hearing 'no thank you' on every attempt is a little excessive and rude. When looking around the pool you could see there were plenty other people feeling the same frustration. People even pretending to be asleep so they weren't hassled! Surely nobody wants to be spending their holiday like that!

Remember that slip I mentioned to have an evening meal in the tucan bar on Tuesday evening? Well, upon closer inspection of this, it had a date on it which was for the 9th July..making it Wednesday. And a different room number on it. This created a suspicion that initially we had a different room, but due to arriving late, this had been given to someone else. Either way, it's poor management telling us the wrong day for the meal, as well as having the wrong room number on it.

Now on to the pool, this was freezing! Granted the weather wasn't as it normally is for the time of year. But the pool was set for 2 degrees! No sooner were you in than you were out!

Location of the hotel is good, about a 20 minute stroll into the town which has lovely restaurants and a few bars and shops. The beach area like wise was lovely. If you get the chance, you must visit the bar out to sea from the beach. Stunning views, and the sea literally laps up next to the rocks where you're sitting.

So back to the hotel. We only visited the entertainment in the broadway bar once and that was definitely enough! It was tacky, and definitely inappropriate considering the amount of children that were there. A few people on the stage, girls vs boys and tasks were set for them. One of them for the girls...to run into the audience to get as many men's pairs of trousers as possible. These men then had to parade in catwalk style to get them back. (Not cool with little kids about right at the front). The next task that the boys had to do was run into the audience and get as many bras as possible!! What?! Taking women's bras off them as a hotel entertainment?! At this point, we'd had enough and went to the bar upstairs which was much nicer.

The bar staff and restaurant staff were always pleasant, constantly cleaning, and couldn't do enough for you.

As our last day was upon us, we were feeling really rather run down, so were looking forward to a nice breakfast (food is good by the way) and getting on the bus to take us back to the airport. Little did we know it wouldn't be that simple at all. At check out, we were told we owed the hotel over 90euros!! When asking why, the guy told us it was the amount of drinks we'd had during the week and hadn't put enough euros on as credit..as mentioned at the start of this review. We were absolutely furious! We explained that the first receptionist told us when we checked in that if we had no money left on the room, the bar staff wouldn't serve us. That clearly didn't turn out to be the case. We were trying to explain that the hotel are essentially running two separate systems so it was pointless us visiting reception every other day to add money to the room. The only reason we did this is because we were told we wouldn't be served if there wasn't any money on there! Instead, we were lied to which left us owing money! They couldn't answer our question as to why we were told this in the first place, and were more interested in the receipts we'd signed. We battled to explain that we weren't disputing the drinks were ours, we were disputing the fact the initial receptionist lied to us (or needs more training about how the system works) and how the rest of the bar staff clearly didn't know that they were meant to check the amount left on the room prior to serving us. It was immensely embarrassing having this argument at reception with a lot of other guests waiting to check out and our bus waiting outside to take us back to the airport! The manager even had the cheek to ask us for friends/family credit card details in the UK to pick up the bill that they caused! In the end, I had sign the back of the print out of amount owed, stating I wouldn't pay it.

All in all, the hotel is trying to be something it's not. I've stayed in many 4* hotels in the past, and this one is definitely not worthy of 4! There are plenty of positive reviews on here, but I can only speak from personal experience that it was the worst hotel I've stayed at in a long, long time.

Stayed: July 2014

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Ask Dowds1 about Hotel Elba Sara

9 Thank Dowds1

This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC

DavidNavarr0, Director General at Hotel Elba Sara, responded to this reviewResponded 4 August 2014

Dear Dowds1,

Thank you for taking the time to write your opinion about your stay at the Hotel Elba Sara again as you did it in twitter while your stay. As you know we removed your husband´s review due to not being according to tripadvisor guidelines. We are very sorry to read that due to a massive delay and not having the room that you expected your holiday did not started as you wish.It’s useless to say that every little niggle on top would be enough to have an unsatisfied customer if even offering a junior suite for three days was declined.

Reading previous reviews; our entertainers have several times been praised for their approach towards the customers without persuading excessively but we apologize if that has been the case and we will remind them that it can be disturbing for some of the customers.One of our pools is acclimatized during winter season, not during summer season as stated in our brochures of the travel agencies.However the temperature stays between 20º and 24ºC which is fresh or cool but certainly not freezing.We like to thank you for mentioning the friendliness of our bar and restaurant staff and we apologize for the inconvenience that you have encountered with the payment procedure but we find it hard to believe that you did not expect the excessive bill at the end of your stay as you have consumed and even signed for what you have consumed for which you are expected to pay for it just as in every establishment all over the world.

You and your husband, still have an open account and pendind invoices at hotel that we are triying to get paid.

Again we are very sorry to read that your personal experience has not been up to your expectations and we hope that you enjoy your next holiday more than this one.

Regards from Fuerteventura.

Report response as inappropriateThank you. We appreciate your input.

This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of TripAdvisor LLC

Myself and my wife and son have stayed at the Elbe Sara for the past 2 years and although we are again going to Fuerteventura in a few weeks we won't be staying at the Elba Sara this year as we have rented a villa on the golf course, this is not to say there is anything wrong about this hotel by the way. So this is to all the folk who are either staying at this hotel or maybe thinking about it. Over the last 2 years we have had a great time whilst staying here, the hotel is welcoming from the moment you walk in all the staff in all the departments are very freindly always have a smile for you. The hotel is spotless we can't fault it on cleanliness from the bedrooms, restuarant and pool areas its spot on. The food is very good loads to choose from always well presented with plenty of choices for everybody. We were always out in the evening so I can't say anything about the evening entertainment, but there were lots of activities for folk to do during the day of any age. Although my son was to old for the kids club i did notice that there was a lot going on for the younger ones and there were a lot of happy faces. Even though we are not staying here this year we would'nt hesitate about returning in the future.

Stayed: August 2013, travelled with family

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Ask CheshireWoody about Hotel Elba Sara

3 Thank CheshireWoody

This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC

DavidNavarr0, Director General at Hotel Elba Sara, responded to this reviewResponded 28 July 2014

Dear CheshireWoody

Thank you very much for sharing your opinion about the Hotel Elba Sara on tripadvisor.We are very proud to have so many repeating customers and such loyal customers who come back every year to visit us, and even though you will not be staying with us this time; feel free to walk in and say hello to some of our employees who might remember you from your previous visits.We are glad to read that you would not hesitate about returning in the future and we will be very happy to be at your service again.

This hotel is very nice, the rooms are excellent and the food is good and varied. There are plenty of places to sit, BUT ... the area where the swimming pools are are just so cramped that you can almost hear the person next to you breathing. Fuerteventura has to be the most boring place I have visited in quite a long time, First of all, we were ripped of with the car hire GOLDCAR, please be warned. The area itself is rocks for miles and miles with very little to do. A few ok shopping centers and that is it. If you are going to stay anywhere, go to Corralejo where there is sand and some shops , kite flying and wind surfing.

Stayed: June 2014, travelled as a couple

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Ask Burntbum about Hotel Elba Sara

Thank Burntbum

This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC

DavidNavarr0, Director General at Hotel Elba Sara, responded to this reviewResponded 28 July 2014

Dear BurntbumThank you for writing your opinion about your visit to Fuerteventura.We are sorry to read that you found Fuerteventura a boring place as depending what you look for you can do some fantastic things here on the island.There are different excursions and activities which can be booked at our reception or even by your agency rep.

As you problably know and despite these landscapes full of rocks very similar to deserts areas ,Ridley Scott filmed in Fuerteventura , a few months ago , Exodus , with Christian Bale , Sigourney Weaver , Ben Kingsley and Jhon Turturro , coming up next December 2014.

We are glad that you liked the hotel and we thank you for mentioning the food.

Best regards from all our staff.David Navarro González Hotel Manger

Report response as inappropriateThank you. We appreciate your input.

This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of TripAdvisor LLC

First things first, this is a good hotel but the management and reception staff let it down badly.

Lets get the good stuff out of the way first. The kids club staff were excellent and full of energy, the restaurant staff were very friendly and went out of their way to help. The food was good quality but extremely repetitive. The rooms all have sea views (unless you are on floor 1)

If you are staying for 2 weeks I would recommend visiting the Chinese and italian restaurants in the shopping center next door because believe me you will get bored of the food selection very quickly.

Now the not so good. The reception staff were some of the most unfriendly and grumpy people I have met in a long time. On arrival after a long journey we had to wait in a long queue to check in. We were told that our rooms wouldn't be ready for a couple more hours (3pm). We returned at 3:10pm to be told our room still wasn't ready but if we wanted we could go up and check to see if the cleaner had finished????. The reception staff would stop talking to us mid sentence and without any apology, run off to answer the phones which in my opinion is extremely rude. Please dont ask the reception staff for any help or advice because the stock answer is either "I dont know" or "we dont deal with that" one lady couldn't answer a simple question about the resort because she said she didn't live near the hotel so didn't know the area??? Its not a big resort.

The reception staff were just getting warmed up. Towards the end of the second week they upped the game with regards to their lack of customer service and general unhelpfulness. Our group required some help and support as we had a sick 4 year old who was confined to her room. The reception and management staff did nothing to help. As food and drink is not alowed to be taken out of the restaurant there was no way to get anything to the sick child. The hotel did not offer to help in anyway and basically ignored us. News of our predicament quickly spread to other guest and we were told by several impartial people that it was a shocking the way we were being treated. This did nothing for the hotels reputation and was the talk of the bar at night.

The Wifi is shockingly slow and unreliable but you are in holiday so put that phone down :-)

The pools are large but as none of the showers were working, the water was cloudy and looked a bit dirty.

Lets end on a positive. There was a lovely lady who served in the restaurant during the day and then in the downstairs bar at night. I didn't get her name but she was full of energy and always went out of her way to say hello and speak to the kids.

If the management and reception staff go on a customer care training course then this hotel could be fantastic.

Stayed: July 2014, travelled with family

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Ask u32gc2 about Hotel Elba Sara

7 Thank u32gc2

This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC

DavidNavarr0, Director General at Hotel Elba Sara, responded to this reviewResponded 18 July 2014

Dear u32gc2Thank you for sharing your holiday experience on this website once again.

We are sorry to read that you did not get the chance to enjoy your holiday to the fullest due to the sickness of your family member however we think that it is unfair to insist in blaming our employees for your bad experience as the procedure of treating with somebody with chicken pox is so strict for the safety of the other children in the hotel.

We also like to remind you that you have booked through Thomas Cook and that you had your Thomas Cook representative on site of which you were continuously complaining that she was not helping you. Surprisingly you do not mention this on here neither in the previous comment that you have written on Tripadvisor for which we feel that your only intention is to damage the image of the Hotel Elba Sara. Indeed the meals have to been taken in the restaurant but we would never refuse to take up your meal to the room for a sick family member as these are exceptions that we always have in account. Taking up the amount of alcoholic drinks that you wished, 4 bottles of wine in a dinner , to your room has been refused for the security of your child.

Our only intention in the Hotel Elba Sara is to have satisfied and if possible repeating customers for whom we will always help as good and as much as possible; we are very sorry that you did not perceive it that way.

Sunny regards from Fuerteventura.David Navarro González Hotel Manager

Report response as inappropriateThank you. We appreciate your input.

This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of TripAdvisor LLC